Cite as: 511 U. S. 641 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
use tax on sales made into the State. Petitioner Alumax Foils, Inc., is a manufacturing firm in Missouri that pays the additional use tax on goods purchased from outside the State. Petitioners brought this action in state court contending that the use tax impermissibly discriminates against interstate commerce in violation of the Commerce Clause. The State Circuit Court rejected petitioners' claims and granted respondents' motion for summary judgment.
The Supreme Court of Missouri affirmed. 857 S. W. 2d 182 (1993). The court noted that the 1.5% use tax had been imposed to equalize taxes on in-state and out-of-state goods. Previously, political subdivisions of the State had imposed local sales tax burdens that were not paralleled by any use tax. Because the tax was designed to even exactions on intrastate and interstate trade, the court reasoned that the scheme should be analyzed under the "compensatory tax" doctrine, which the court summarized as permitting States to "impose . . . equivalent burden[s]" on transactions in local and interstate commerce. Id., at 187.
The court acknowledged that, in 53.5% of local taxing jurisdictions, the 1.5% use tax exceeded the local sales tax. See id., at 185, n. 3. But the court emphasized that 1990 sales figures from the stipulated record showed that over 93% of the dollar volume of sales in the State occurred in jurisdictions where the local sales tax exceeded the use tax. See id., at 185. Calculating from similar figures, the court determined that, had a flat local sales tax of 1.5%—exactly equivalent to the use tax—been imposed in 1990, it would have reduced the sales tax burden on in-state sales by $100 million. Ibid. In short, the court concluded that given the high average rate of local sales taxes, the overall effect of the use tax scheme across the State was to place a lighter aggregate tax burden on interstate commerce than on intrastate commerce.
After rehearsing these facts, the court stated the issue before it as being whether "a state use tax may impose a
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